Tech & VC 06 Oct 2006 11:19 pm
Meta Vertical Search Recommendation?
Dogpile was the last search engine (technically it was a meta search engine) I used regularly before I started using Google exclusively. At the time Dogpile was great. I was already searching the same keywords on multiple search engines in order to find the highest quality pages, and Dogpile made it much simpler perform and manage multiple searches across a number of search engines.
But then I stopped using multiple search engines because Google was consistently producing the highest quality general results, and it ran a lot faster than Dogpile.
However, these days the best general search results is not enough. I once again find myself performing multiple searching on the same subject, but today I’m using multiple vertical search engines instead of multiple general search engines. I often find a need to search a set of keywords in Google, Google Image Search, Google Finance Search, Technorati, Flickr, del.icio.us, and Wikipedia. Does anyone have a good meta vertical search engine to recommend?
I found this one on the MyStrands Labs site today, which is a decent meta vertical search engine. The UI of the app alone was sensible and lightweight, but the choice of vertical search engines wasn’t quite right, and the site surrounding the meta vertical search box/search results was bulky and unnecessary.
Currently, to scratch the meta vertical search itch, I’m using keyword bookmarks in Firefox and opening up separate tabs for each search. In each tab I type keywords like “wp Jimmy Wales” or “fin Wikia” in the the Address Bar in order to search on wikipedia for Jimmy Wales and Google Finance for Wikia, respectively.
I’m certain a quick mashup or simple Firefox extension could greatly simplify my search habits, and someone must have already built it. Anyone have any recommendations?
6 Responses to “Meta Vertical Search Recommendation?”
on 07 Oct 2006 at 6:17 am 1.Alex Iskold said …
I profiled quite a few vertical search engines in one of my last posts on R/WW: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/vertical_search.php
The one that stood out for me at DEMOfall was Retrevo electronics search.
Alex
on 07 Oct 2006 at 7:20 am 2.Andrew Parker said …
Thanks Alex. That’s a great overview. I only glossed over it when you first posted it, but my second read right now proved to be quite rich. So, the question I put forward in my post is, who is doing the best job mashing up all these vertical search engines into a meta vertical search engine? Thoughts?
on 07 Oct 2006 at 11:46 am 3.Alex Iskold said …
Andrew,
I think that Meta Vertical search engine is Google :).
In a way, it becomes a chicken/egg problem because the Vertical search is rising because of the need to address the nuances and specifics of each vertical. Having a meta search engine might bring us to the problem that google is having today.
To me, the biggest value add in each of the vertical searches is in the UI, presentation and understading semantics of the information. The Meta search engine is going to have a challenge in this area, and so I am not sure its going to be effective.
Instead, my hunch is that we are going to see a combination of vertical search and personalized search emerging and probably winning over the users in the next few years. Google will remain as a leading generic search engine, but will give up pieces in some major verticals like entertainment and electronics. This thinking is tied to what you know we are doing with blueorganizer at adaptiveblue – slicing data by semantical categories to increase ease of use and relevance.
Alex
on 09 Oct 2006 at 4:10 pm 4.nick gogerty said …
we make a tool that delivers search results via RSS from major search engines. http://www.feedgit.com may be interesting for you.
on 16 Oct 2006 at 5:02 pm 5.Teens Build Meta-Vertical Search Engine at The Gong Show said …
[...] A couple weeks ago I posted to my blog asking if anyone had a recommendation for a meta-vertical search engine in the spirit of the early days of DogPile. [...]
on 28 Nov 2006 at 8:37 am 6.NitinK said …
Andrew:
I think you’re right – some type of meta vertical search engine is inevitable, simply because it’s not realistic for a general user to remember a dozen separate sites, one for each vertical; power users within a given field, of course, might use the full power of a vertical engine in that field for specialized queries.
I agree with Alex that this approach poses serious challenges, because providing domain-specific features and presentation is at odds with serving multiple verticals at the same time. For that reason, I think it may be difficult for Google to pull this off, notwithstanding their recent initiatives with Google Co-op, OneBox, etc. [For reactions from the Vertical search engines, see my post: Bring it On, Google!].